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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (87487)	3/28/2003 8:39:38 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Ah, now we are on the same dance floor. But doing different steps. Particularly since I can't dance. The issue which got me started on this exchange was the term Wilsonian to describe the neocon project. It seems to me partially right and partially wrong. I thought you might take a different bait and head down that road. You didn't, so now I'll just have to assert this turkey without your help. Recall that Zakaria had that nice essay in which he advanced the argument that the neocons were Wilsonian. Sounded fine at first glance. And, in its imagery at its best, it carries some of the flavor of "making the world safe for democracy." However, as it gets articulated in the Iraqi argument, reality gets in the way of rhetoric. Majoritarian democracy won't work; shiites take over, sunnis go to war, kurds likewise. Federated units with democratic internals might appear to work at first glance but majoritarian democracy lacks human rights principles among them protection of minorities. That would be a big problem in each unit within the federation. Shiites, for instance, in central Iraq would be in danger. Etc. Serious democracy requires a long term commitment; long term commitment will require long term American presence; that produces anger, guerilla warfare, etc. I typed well back in the early life of the thread that the big thing to worry about from the Bush folk was arrogance. One could begin to see it flair up in the way in which they dealt with the multilateral issues of the ICC, Kyoto, etc. Not their opposition; rather their scorn. That list goes on. But we are now clearly paying the price.